A pressure plate cannot be attached to the side or bottom of any block, but attempting to make such an attachment may cause the plate to attach to the top of a block under the destination space. For example, if a fence is on the ground, attempting to attach a plate to the side of the fence will cause the plate to be attached to the top of the ground next to the fence instead.

Activation

A pressure plate activates when an entity is on top of it (specifically, when the entity's collision mask intersects the bottom quarter-block of the pressure plate's space, which may include entities flying close to the ground) and deactivates 5 redstone ticks (0.5 seconds, barring lag) after no entities are on top of it, with a minimum activation time of 10 redstone ticks (1.0 seconds, barring lag).[verify]

A minecart traveling on rails will activate a pressure plate next to a diagonal track but not one next to a straight track (stone pressure plates are activated only if the minecart contains a mob or player).

For stone and wooden pressure plates, the power level is always 15. For weighted pressure plates, the power level varies depending on the number of entities (see Required Entities for Weighted Pressure Plate Signal Strength Table, right).

The signal strength from a weighted pressure plate does not vary with the type of entity: all entities have the same "weight" (for example, two mobs produce the same strength as two dropped items). An item stack counts as a single entity, no matter how many items are in the stack. When multiple items of the same type fall on a weighted pressure plate, they may initially be separate item entities and the weighted pressure plate will count them separately, but if they then collapse into a single item stack entity the signal strength from the weighted pressure plate may go down.

Water and lava will flow around a pressure plate without affecting it.

A pressure plate is not solid (it is not a barrier to entity movement). A block under a pressure plate can provide a solid barrier underneath it (for mobs to walk across, items to fall on, etc.), but when a pressure plate is placed on a block with a small collision mask, such as a fence or nether brick fence, it is possible for entities to move through the pressure plate while still activating it (walking through it horizontally, or falling through it vertically). Thus, a pressure plate on a fence can be used to detect entities without stopping them (more compactly than a tripwire circuit).

Pressure plates are 0.0625 blocks high (1⁄16 of a block) when inactive and 0.03125 blocks high (1⁄32 of a block) when active, but because they are not solid they do not affect the position of entities "on top" of them (for example, a player on top of a pressure plate is actually standing on the block beneath it).

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